


Easy As Pie

by Black_Crystal_Dragon



Category: Whyborne and Griffin - Jordan L. Hawk
Genre: Baking, Birthday, Birthday Fluff, Birthday Presents, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Humor, I Tried, M/M, POV Third Person, Pie, baking disasters, mentions of Heliabel Whyborne and Miss Emily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 07:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20596757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Crystal_Dragon/pseuds/Black_Crystal_Dragon
Summary: Whyborne tries to make a pie for a special occasion. Tries.Set some time early on in Whyborne & Griffin’s relationship, afterThreshold.





	Easy As Pie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ice_Elf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ice_Elf/gifts).

> Contains lots of (unnecessary?) detail about baking. You have been warned.
> 
> This is unbeta’d because I can hardly ask my BFF to beta their own birthday fic! ;) Any remaining errors are mine. (Please do point them out so I can fix them!) I will warn you right now: I lost the ability to distinguish between flour and flower while writing this, so if you spot the wrong one, I missed it during editing and I can only apologise.
> 
> <s>I'm really scared to post fic in this fandom for some reason, hhhhh.</s>

Whyborne stood before the kitchen table and surveyed the task before him. Ingredients in various containers were laid out alongside the rest of the equipment he’d need, and took up most of the table top.

It had taken some convincing to persuade Miss Emily to part with her favoured recipe - or at least, a recipe she though Whyborne would be able to follow. He was sure she had only agreed to give him a copy because Mother had asked and assured her with unfounded confidence that he would do a marvellous job so long as he had her instructions. Mother, of course, knew the true purpose behind his request, and that he would therefore try his best, and perhaps that was why she was prepared to commend his culinary abilities. Miss Emily had remained doubtful, but nonetheless had brought him the recipe and kindly gone through the stages with him before he took his leave. It had seemed a simple enough process at the time.

Not so now. In the few days since his trip to Whyborne House, the steps seemed to have multiplied. Sentences that had been perfectly understandable when she spoke them aloud had become almost like another language entirely on the page, and not one he could read.

He steadied himself, laying both hands flat on the table. He had mastered some of the strange arts detailed within the _Arcanorum_. He could manage a little baking.

A final check of the ingredients and apparatus reassured him that he had everything he needed. Finally he glanced at the clock. Miss Emily had seemed certain that the whole affair shouldn’t take more than two hours from start to finish, so he ought to be done before Griffin returned later in the afternoon.

Griffin was currently working on a mundane case, something about missing profits and possible embezzlement. He had arranged to meet his client that afternoon to interview the staff at his shop: a task he expected to take several hours. Whyborne had advised the Director in advance that he would be taking the whole day off, but since Griffin would be at the house until lunchtime there was no way of staying at home without either arousing suspicion or abandoning his planned surprise altogether. He had therefore left as usual after breakfast and spent the morning sequestered in his office at the Museum, nose buried in ancient parchments, until Miss Parkhurst had come to fetch him at noon as requested. He had thanked her and taken his leave, hurrying back to the house with only a small detour to pick up the last of the supplies.

He should have plenty of time, but it wouldn’t be wise to dawdle. Griffin’s work was oftentimes unpredictable and he could always return early.

Miss Emly had impressed upon him the importance of heating the oven in advance and so he began by setting it to the right temperature before turning his attention to the list of instructions. The first item on the list was weighing out the correct amounts of flour and butter, which he managed without mishap. A little flour spilled across the table and dusty particles of it settled on his cuffs and the front of his suit, but he ignored them for the time being. He expected the task to be messy, after all.

The next line instructed him to rub together the flour and butter, but with what? It didn’t specify. A wooden spoon? Those were used in baking. He tried it, smearing together the ingredients, but it didn’t create the ‘breadcrumb’ texture he needed. Not the rolling pin, of that he was certain, and using a knife or fork seemed equally inappropriate. His hands, then? He had heard of kneading dough for bread: did one do the same with pastry? With no one to ask besides Saul, who was washing himself by the stove, he resolved to try it and plunged both hands into the bowl.

He recoiled from the soft, cool squish of butter between his fingers, an involuntary noise of disgust wrenching from him.

Still, he persevered, trying all the while not to compare the sensations to stepping in the slithery mud that filled the streets of Widdershins in fall and winter. Even when the butter began to combine with the flour, the texture remained unpleasant. Globs stuck between his fingers and refused to join the rest of the mixture. He wrinkled his nose and kept squeezing and rubbing until, at last, the ingredients formed what he assumed was the right sort of consistency.

Breathing a sigh, he withdrew and did his best to brush the flour and butter clinging to his hands back into the bowl, with only moderate success. He checked the recipe for his next task and then reached for the bowl of water.

The cat chose that moment to jump up onto the table and stick his nose into the butter dish.

Whyborne jumped in surprise, jerking the bowl and sloshing water across the table top. The wave splashed towards Saul. He yowled in protest and leapt down, knocking the sack of flour. It tipped over almost in slow motion, sending up an enormous puff of white that cascaded along the table and over the edge.

“Saul!” Whyborne moaned, and then coughed as he inhaled flour dust.

By the time he had composed himself and dissipated the cloud with frantic wafting, the water had turned the spill into a gluey mess on the table top and Saul had disappeared, leaving behind a trail of white paw-prints.

Whyborne stood for a moment with his eyes closed, wondering why he had thought this was such a good idea. There were plenty of bakeries in Widdershins. People who found this kind of labour as simple as reading hieroglyphics was to him. He could have gone to any one of them to order what he wanted and brought home a perfect gift for Griffin with no effort or difficulty.

Yet his conviction remained firm that it would mean so much more if he made it himself.

There was nothing to do but clean up and carry on. First of all, he rinsed off his hands and went to check that the cat wasn’t tracking flour all over the house. Once satisfied that the floury prints ended just beyond the kitchen door and that Saul was washing off the flecks that remained on his fur in the upstairs study, he returned to the kitchen and closed the door firmly behind him. He wiped up the spilled water as best he could and righted the sack of flour. The spilled contents were unsalvageable. He scraped the worst of the mess off the table and into a dustpan, gave the floor a cursory sweep and threw the whole worthless lot into the trash. With the kitchen more or less in a fit state to be used once again, he turned back to the recipe.

Next water, preferably without throwing it all over his work space this time.

He poked a small divot into the centre of his ‘breadcumbs’ and spooned water into the hollow. The recipe then required him to combine the ingredients, again without advising an implement, so with a sigh he lowered his hands into the bowl a second time. Somehow the water made the whole situation worse: slick and glutinous at the same time, slipping and sticking between his fingers and making him shudder.

The mix came together, but it seemed awfully sticky and soft and was filled with misshapen lumps. He frowned as he moved it around in the bowl, trying to transfer the slimy residue off his hands. He couldn’t imagine successfully rolling this out into a flat sheet. He could very nearly _pour_ it, if not for the fact that it stuck to everything it touched. He checked the recipe, but there was nothing about what to do if the pastry turned out like this. He glanced at the flour. It was the only dry ingredient. Adding more ought to help, surely? He grabbed a tablespoon, scooped a generous amount of flour into the bowl and started mixing.

Almost immediately the texture improved and he started to smile, only for his face to fall as the dough went too far in the opposite direction. It began to crumble apart into chunks between his palms.

“No,” he groaned, “No, no, no!”

He kept kneading, in the vain hope that it might help. He wiped the last bits of wet pastry from his hands and pressed it into the mixture in the hopes it would provide enough moisture. It didn’t make much difference.

Eventually he convinced the pastry to form one lump, albeit one latticed with large cracks. Grumbling, he checked the recipe again. He could perhaps try adding more butter or water - but after this disaster, he was reluctant to extemporise, and so he moved on. The next step said to separate the dough into halves for rolling out.

Well, that ought to be easy enough given that it didn’t want to stay together in the first place.

He broke off a large chunk, perhaps a little more than exactly half, and placed it on the table top. Then he remembered that he needed to dust the surface with yet more flour to keep it from sticking and hastily snatched it up again to correct his mistake.

Rolling out the pastry was a nightmare. With every press, the dough stuck to the rolling pin, and yet at the same time cracks formed at the edges and crept further in with every laboured pass. He frowned and squeezed it back together each time, but he couldn’t get it even close to the thinness and size he needed it to be without it breaking apart.

In desperation, Whyborne dipped his hand in the water bowl and gathered the dough back up, pressing it together with damp fingers. It immediately became even stickier, but this time without the loose consistency. He dropped it to the table top before he added too much liquid and quickly applied the rolling pin. It hissed across the surface, still sticking badly, but more flour applied to the top allowed him to squash the dough down into a rough, flat round, this time with only a few cracks. He concentrated on thinning the pastry down until at last it was ready. Perhaps it was a little thicker at one end than the other, and rather lumpier than he thought it should be, but at least it wasn’t riddled with breakages. He hoped it would be good enough.

He plucked at the edge of the pastry, lifting it - and tore off a great uneven strip.

The pastry was stuck fast to the table. Whyborne stared in horror at the segment in his hands and the ruined sheet in front of him.

He’d forgotten to lay down more flour before he started rolling his freshly dampened pastry. _How_ had he forgotten? He’d remembered earlier, during the first attempt at rolling out - but that didn’t matter. It had slipped his mind at the most critical moment.

He abandoned the useless strip in the bowl and pulled out the nearest chair so he could sit down. He didn’t bury his face in his hands, but only because at the last moment he remembered he was covered in flour and grease. He stared sadly across the table-top, certain that other people’s kitchens never got into such a state, and just as sure that following a simple list of instructions should not be this hard. How did anyone manage this with ease? Was he doing something wrong? Was he simply an incompetent in the kitchen?

A glance at the clock shocked him back into action. Somehow he’d been at work for over an hour already! There was no time to wallow in his mistakes when he still had so much more to do.

Reluctant to repeat the lengthy task of rolling out from scratch when he was already behind schedule, he decided to try and ease the pastry up from the table top. It clung like a limpet. The small areas around the edges that he could lift off pulled at the stuck sections, stretching dangerously thin and threatening to tear as well. He narrowed his eyes and fetched a knife. Sliding it between the table and the pastry wasn’t easy: it stretched further as he lifted each loosened section and he pierced through in several places, but finally managed to cut it free.

He slapped the misshapen sheet into the waiting pie dish with a huge sigh and hastily pinched all of the holes and flimsy areas back together. It was ugly patchwork and he could only hope that it would hold up and not ruin the entire pie.

It was a relief to set the dish and remaining dough aside while he prepared the filling. He had picked up the last ingredient on his way home: apples of a crisp red variety that he knew Griffin favoured for eating raw. He could only assume that they would taste just as good in a pie. Miss Emily had assured him that eating apples would do just as well as cooking apples, and would even add extra sweetness, which sounded perfect. He washed pastry residue from his hands and set about preparing the apples, peeling and coring them before chopping them and placing the pieces into a pan. At one point he carved into the pad of his thumb and had to stop until the bleeding could be staunched, but otherwise the process was without mishap. His battered confidence began to return. Perhaps he could succeed at this after all.

When the pan held enough to produce the filling, he measured out the necessary sugar and dusted it over the top along with powdered spice: mainly cinnamon, but also dashes of nutmeg and ginger. Once done, he took the pan across to the stove and stirred it over the heat before covering it with a lid.

He had a few minutes while the apples stewed, and so with a feeling of dead he turned back to the dough. Still, he could learn from the mistakes he’d made with the first half of the pastry. He dampened the fingers of his uninjured hand and kneaded the crumbling pieces of dry pastry back together, floured the table top and started rolling out. The second time around went slightly better, but once the pastry had reached the right size and thickness he suddenly became aware that the pleasant aroma of cooking apples had turned acrid. He spun around and snatched the pan off the heat, fumbling the lid off with messy hands.

Smoke erupted from the pan along with a distinctly burnt smell. Moaning at his own foolishness for losing track of time, Whyborne found a spoon and poked at the sizzling apple pieces. They hadn’t broken down as he’d expected. The chunks on top seemed fine, but lower down in the pan they were stuck to the bottom and charred black.

Whyborne doled out as much of the mixture as he dared into the waiting pie dish, using every scrap that didn’t look as if it had burned, but it barely covered the base. He threw the pan into the sink in disgust.

He still had more apples. He could try again, and this time not make a mess of things.

However, another check of the clock struck off that idea. Preparing the first batch had taken far longer than he had thought. Already he was approaching the end of his second hour, and the pie wasn’t even ready for baking yet. He was increasingly aware that Griffin could return at any moment. What if the client’s staff was smaller than he had anticipated? What if he discovered all he needed from just a handful of them? He could picture Griffin walking through the streets of Widdershins, already on his way home, and the thought set his heart pounding - and, on this rare occasion, _not_ with joyful anticipation. He resolved to make the best of what he had and hastily threw more sugar and cinnamon on top of the sad collection of apple chunks inside the pie dish.

Returning to the pastry lid, he found that the dough had once more adhered itself to the table while he was busy salvaging what he could of the apples.

Questioning yet again his decision to attempt baking, he scraped it free with a little more assistance from the knife and laid it over his meagre filling of apples in the pie dish. Cutting off the excess pastry had sounded easy enough on the page, but it was fiddly and he ended up with rather ragged edges and more cuts to show for it. His final task was to pinch the two sheets of pastry together to form a crust. With the coating of flour on the topmost piece, it wasn’t the easiest of tasks, but after applying more water to the seam he persuaded them to stick.

Whyborne carried the pie across to the oven and slid it into place, slamming the door on his monstrous creation before stumbling back to his chair and sinking down, defeated.

After a long moment, he raised his head and surveyed the kitchen. There was flour everywhere: on the floor, scattered across the table, dusted onto the stove and the oven door. A glance downwards revealed that he hadn’t fared any better than his surroundings. Used utensils and containers were strewn over every surface in between abandoned ingredients. The uncovered butter was melting in its dish. His arms ached from kneading and rolling out the pastry, as did his back from bending over the table, and the cuts on his hands were stinging. His heart sank at the prospect of everything he would have to do to set the kitchen back to rights.

Worse, he was convinced already that the pie would be terrifically inadequate, if not outright disgusting. He should have bought Griffin something: a tie, a waistcoat, cufflinks - a pie, even, that would have been enough. Now Griffin would have to make do without a present, because in his arrogance he had assumed himself capable.

One thing he could ensure, at least, was that Griffin came home to a tidy kitchen and not the chaos he had created. He heaved himself back to his feet and set to work.

~

Griffin returned home to find the front door unlocked and a distinct smell of burning hanging in the air. There were also moans of distress coming from the kitchen.

Visions of fire spells gone hideously wrong flashed through his mind.

“Whyborne?” he called, striding down the hall. “Is that you? What’s wrong?”

The door was ajar. He pushed it open and stepped inside. Whyborne was indeed the source of the sounds, but to Griffin’s immense relief no magic was in evidence and he was unharmed.

He was kneeling by the oven, holding in his hands a smoking pie that somehow seemed to be both burnt black and under-done at the same time. The front of his suit and his cuffs were coated in flour. There was sweat on his brow, no doubt the result of the stuffy heat in the kitchen. His dark hair was sticking up at all angles, which wasn’t all that unusual, but it was also liberally dusted with more flour and what looked like fragments of pastry, as if he’d forgotten himself at some point and run his fingers through it. 

The dejection on his face intensified as he looked up. For once, he didn’t sound at all happy as he said, “You’re home.”

He stood, shoulders even more hunched than usual, and deposited the pie dish on the kitchen table without ceremony. He stared at it rather than look at Griffin.

“What’s all this?” Griffin asked delicately as he approached, removing his outer coat in deference to the temperature and hanging it over a chair.

The pie was strangely flat and sunken. On closer inspection, the pastry in the middle was not raw, it just hadn’t turned golden-brown in the oven: the inevitable result of no milk wash before baking. As he spun the dish around to scrutinise it from all angles, another scent hiding somewhere beneath the smoky odour rose up, familiar and comforting. He started to smile despite the utterly defeated look on Whyborne’s face.

“Apple pie?” he said.

“Yes,” Whyborne admitted. He glanced up and the flush riding high on his cheekbones intensified: a product now of embarrassment, rather than the uncomfortable warmth in the kitchen. He heaved an enormous sigh and folded himself onto a chair. “I’m sorry. It was supposed to be a surprise ...”

Well, it certainly was that.

The pie itself might well have been the least appetising he had ever seen, but Whyborne had made it himself from scratch, just for him. He had listened to Griffin’s throwaway comment about his Ma making this very dish for his birthday, remembered it, and gone to the trouble of recreating the tradition. It might not have turned out perfectly, but it meant the world that he had tried at all.

“My dear,” he murmured through the knot of emotion crowding his throat.

He bent to take hold of Whyborne’s hands and, when he raised his head to look at him in confusion, he kissed the wrinkle of his brow. 

“I’ll make it up to you,” Whyborne said. He cast a regretful glance at the clock. “It’s too late now, but tomorrow I’ll go to the bakery and bring back the finest apple pie Widdershins can produce.”

“There’s nothing to make up for,” Griffin said, squeezing his hands.

Whyborne fixed him with an incredulous look. “Griffin, please. I appreciate you trying to spare my feelings -”

“I’m not,” he promised. He couldn’t stop smiling. “And I don’t want shop-bought pie. I want to try what you’ve made for me.”

“You can’t be serious!” Whyborne said, alarmed.

“Why not?” Griffin asked, though he could understand Whyborne’s objection perfectly well. If he was presented with this particular pie in any other circumstances, he’d politely decline, but not on this occasion. Aside from his Ma, no one had ever cared enough to make him apple pie for his birthday, and the fact that it was Whyborne who had bothered to do so, despite the fact that he subsisted on only the simplest of meals when he was required to make them for himself, made tasting it an indispensable necessity.

He let go of Whyborne’s hands and went to fetch a knife. He found the one he was looking for by the sink, freshly washed. He retrieved a plate and a fork as well before he returned to the table.

“Griffin,” Whyborne protested as he pulled the dish towards him and slid the knife into the centre of the pie.

“What?” he chuckled as he cut a neat slice - or as neat as he could make it, at least. The pastry was thick and tough, the crust especially so, and when he transferred it to the plate he could see just how little filling the pie contained. Still, that didn’t nothing to kill his elation. He had home-made apple pie for his birthday.

“You can’t possibly mean to eat that. It’s burnt.”

“Not in the middle,” he countered.

He sat and turned his full attention to the pie. He broke off a piece and slid the fork beneath it, making sure he had both pastry and filling. Whyborne watched him with unhidden dread as he lifted it to his mouth.

The apples were fine: sweet and spiced but with the natural flavour still coming through. There just wasn’t enough of them, and the pastry was heavy and dense, hard to chew and very floury in both texture and flavour.

“I’m sorry,” Whyborne said again, wincing, as he watched him chew. “It’s awful. Please, don’t feel you have to eat the rest.”

Griffin swallowed, laid down his fork and reached again for Whyborne’s hand where it lay clenched on the table top.

“Ival, please, don’t apologise. This …” He paused and waited until curiosity got the better of Whyborne and he looked up and caught sight of his smile. “Well, my dear, it may well be the worst pie I’ve ever tasted, but I love that you made it for me. Thank you.”

The acknowledgement that his attempt at baking was indeed terrible turned up the corners of Whyborne’s mouth at last. “You can thank me tomorrow, when I bring you one that is actually edible.”

“I have already told you that there’s no need,” Griffin murmured, though he didn’t expect Whyborne to listen. He certainly wouldn’t if their positions were reversed: he would want to offer only the best to his Ival, and if his own efforts were not good enough, even if only in his eyes, he wouldn’t rest until he had made it right. Struck by a sudden idea, he added, “Are there any ingredients left?”

“Why, are you planning to confiscate them?” Whyborne replied with waspish irritation, evidently still annoyed with himself. “I assure you, I have no plans to repeat this particular failure.”

“That’s a pity,” Griffin said gently. “I was hoping we might make a second attempt together.”

Whyborne’s sour expression melted away into one of surprise. “You want to bake another pie with me?”

“Yes, if you’re agreeable. I can’t think of a better way to spend what remains of my birthday than here with you, in our home, making something delicious,” Griffin told him. It was entirely true: he would have the pleasure of his lover’s company, the satisfaction of baking, which he enjoyed, and by the end of it they would have produced the treat Whyborne had intended to give him in the first place.

“I can,” Whyborne muttered, while Griffin went to the window and flung it open in the hopes of cooling the stifling room. “May I also point out that there is no guarantee the results will be any more edible?”

Griffin laughed and tugged him to his feet before kissing him.

“It will turn out just fine,” he promised. He’d make sure of it. “And later, I shall show you my … appreciation … for all your efforts.”

Whyborne’s brows lifted. “Oh? I’m not sure I’ve earned any such thing.”

“You have, my dear,” he chuckled, thinking more of the time invested than the result. He lowered his voice to an intimate murmur and said, “You deserve quite a reward for going to so much trouble just for me.”

He kissed the next objection from Whyborne’s lips before he could voice it. He wasn’t sure it would be possible to properly show all the gratitude and love he felt, but he intended to try - but later, _later_. For now they were supposed to be baking. He ought to pull back before they both got carried away.

Whyborne’s arms came up around him and his resolve wavered.

“Or perhaps I should thank you for my present now,” he said breathlessly when they parted. After all, it was far too hot in the kitchen to seriously attempt pastry. He fisted his hands in Whyborne’s flour-dusted lapels and tugged. “Come upstairs with me.”

“All right,” Whyborne breathed and let Griffin drag him unresisting from the kitchen.

They’d make the pie as planned, Griffin was determined to see that through, but it would wait. The salt-tinged breeze blowing in and the evening chill gathering at dusk would bring the temperature back down to something conducive to working with pastry, and then they’d return. Until then, he intended to show Whyborne just how pleased he was with his birthday present.

**Author's Note:**

> Now I want apple pie.
> 
> I have had some truly awful pie-making times so some (not all) of Whyborne’s woes are based on genuine experiences … sometimes writing = therapy. :P My pies generally turn out slightly better than his attempt though!
> 
> Whyborne uses spices that may well be historically inaccurate or unlikely - I didn’t have the time or patience to research what spices were available/popular in this time period in the US, sorry. Let’s pretend that he and/or Miss Emily raided the well-stocked Whyborne House kitchens? I also do not know how kitchens operate in this time period (were gas hobs/ovens a thing??) so if _absolutely everything_ is wrong I apologise for that too. <s>This, this is why I'm terrified to post fic in this fandom, oh dear.</s>
> 
> I want to say that this takes place on Griffin’s next birthday after _Threshold_, but I don’t know if that would work within canon ...


End file.
